The main objective of the overall project is to enhance the planning security of freight forwarders in order to reduce the energy consumption as well as to increase the use of sustainable transportation modes, especially IWT (inland water transportation) in the Danube Region. This is supposed to be achieved by using a system-integrated model in form of a "Proof-of-Concept"-Demonstrator that smartly connects forecasting, planning and optimization of the planned capacities within the scope of a case study in the automotive industry, which is playing a more and more vital role in the Danube Region (e.g. Creation of Automotive Supercluster "DonauMotor" in PAC8).

The core elements of this demonstrator are regarded to be:• Developed forecasting logic that is based on the manufacturer's forecasts and factors of influence (e.g. seasonality, economic growth, plant capacity planning, contracts, strategies etc.) in order to determine higher planning security and more specific and finer granularity of planning and thus enable the Danube Region to become the European technology axis of Best Practice• Sustainable optimization of transportation planning by using adequate alternatives of action in order to support sustainable transportation modes (rail, waterway) and thereby ecological and economic potential in the Danube Region.

The purpose is to improve capacity planning by using predetermined forecast parameters, to increase the use of sustainable and multimodal transport chains integrating IWT.